Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Descent into Hades - Christ Risen!

THE EASTERN CHURCH DOESN'T make images of the moment of Resurrection. The Easter Icon is titled The Descent into Hades: that Christ has gone down into the very deepest place of darkness, fear, sin and loss and there, unwilling to lose anything that belongs to God, retrieves Adam and Eve from their tombs and all those who are waiting for their salvation.

The mountains or caverns to left and right seem to hold Christ who descends to the underworld in a sphere of light. Everything radiates with the energies of the Resurrected Christ. Adam and Eve seem to be the last ones plucked from eternal loss, while Moses and the kings of Israel observe. Christ's movements, striding over the gates of Hades, suggest the Easter Hymn: Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tomb, bestowing life!

All Time Favorites

Search Pauca Verba

Father Stephen was ordained a priest in 1979 for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York.
Before seminary he taught in New York City parochial schools. Following ordination he served as a parish priest and assumed chaplaincies to monastic sisters, a university hospital and a school-community for young people who had lost their life-direction. He currently resides at Christ of the Hills Retreat House in Pennsylvania. He has written and self-published "There is no problem..." a book of rosary meditations and The Way of the Cross, My Way of Life, a six week series of meditations on the traditional Stations of the Cross.